


DNA - Lia Marie Johnson

by JaeRianL



Series: Multifandom Songfic Series [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Human, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, F/M, M/M, Muteness, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:13:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9289793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaeRianL/pseuds/JaeRianL
Summary: The lifetime of Simon Lewis that no one knew (and everyone will hate reading).





	

Whenever someone asked Simon about his father, he’d say the exact same, scripted piece for years, which was that his father had passed when he was an infant and his mother when he was ten, and that he was coping with it. And over the long eighteen years of his life, only one had realised that he was lying through the skin of his teeth, that he needed help, that he needed to get away like Rebecca had done years prior, before he was at his worst.

_Dark as midnight_   
_Six pack Coors Light_   
_You don't look the same_

When Simon was five, his sister had moved out of the house, heading off to college in Minnesota for some degree she didn’t even want, just to get away from her parents. It was a little after a month when the police had been called to the rundown house for the fifth time. Simon had been unable to keep quiet when his father broke his arm for breaking one of their more expensive “special” plates, and unluckily a neighbour heard them. It was the deranged look on his father’s clearly not sober face that had scared the young child the most, his fear overweighing the pain he felt. Holding onto his mother’s skinny hand, he nearly sobbed when his mother had lied to the police and said that he had fallen down the stairs and that she wouldn’t be pressing charges, the betrayal too much for him to cope with. A kind looking officer, who’d said his name was Luke, gives the child a look of sympathy as he walks away from the scene with more reluctance than the injured boy realised was possible. After Simon’s arm had been put in a cast at the local ER, his father was sure to inflict as much pain on the child as possible without causing any suspicion, even if it meant scaring the boy into submission and mutism.

_Past my bedtime_   
_Blue and red lights_   
_Come take you away_

The next time Luke had an encounter with Simon was when the boy was six and a half, because his father had beaten his mother within an inch of her life. However she lied to the officers when she regained consciousness in the hospital, claiming a mugger had attacked her when she was out after work. When the kindly looking man tried talking to the boy, in a last ditch attempt in trying to get Simon’s version of events, the boy decided to look anywhere except directly at the police officer and the boy refused to utter a word to him. He saw a tremble from the child being around another adult, which disgusted Luke to no end, however seeing as his mother refused to get Simon’s father arrested, the caring man could do nothing about it whatsoever.

_Hate to see you like a monster_   
_So I run and hide_   
_Hate to ask but what's it like to leave me behind_

By the time Simon was ten, he’d become an expert at running from people, he was an expert at hiding from the police. He’d become accustomed to living with the monster that was his father, the monster that was his mother, but it was when his mother decided that she’d had enough with his father and she ran, she ran and she killed herself. Even as a mute, all he wanted to do was ask his mother what he’d done wrong, what it was like to leave him all by himself with that monster. But he couldn’t do it, both physically and mentally. Because after five years of having that submission and fear being beaten into him, it was physically impossible for Simon to say anything to anyone and so he resorts to the only thing he does know how to do, bottle up his emotions and hope and pray for his life.   
  
In terms of school – which Simon had been forced to go to regardless of the pain he endured – was the one place he could go and hide behind his intellect, which exceed many people who were years older than him. So every day, the boy would wake up at about half past five in the morning and without fail, he’d make his father breakfast, gets himself ready and rushes out of the rundown, disgusting area he had to live in at about six in the morning, fearful of what the men in the area would be capable of doing to him. When he reached his school, at only seven in the morning, he’d rush to the school library, the only thing he found made him feel safe in life. Most days on the way to school or at school, he’d recognise Luke and no matter how hard the man would try and gain the boy’s trust, he’d been too damaged to even think that there was someone, an adult, who actually cared about him and had his best interests at heart.

_I won't be, no I won't be like you_   
_Fighting back, I'm fighting back the truth_   
_Eyes like yours can't look away_

The first time Simon ever lashed out at someone was when he was thirteen and one of his bullies at school, a blonde haired, golden eyed boy named Jace. The boy, a year older than Simon, had seen the lanky boy with his red headed girlfriend called Cara (maybe Clara, Catherine? Simon didn’t care to know her name really) – who wanted to know what the homework from their English literature class only for Simon to shrug and rush off to the library, not answering her question. One of Jace’s siblings, though Simon didn’t know which one, had apparently seen them together and ran to their brother and told him. The night before the “incident” as Simon liked to call it, his father had found out the boy had only got a B in his biology test – which his teacher changed to an A after realising she’d miscounted the marks and amended the test – and as usual, his father had beaten him for the mark. He’d barely made it out of bed that morning, let alone gone to school, so when Jace had shoved the boy against the harsh metal lockers, his back covered in welts from the belt his father had attacked his back with, Simon swiftly kicked the teenager in the groin before punching him in the gut and storming off to the library, leaving him to his own devices.

Reflecting on what he’d done, the boy had to bite his lip so he didn’t scream out at the throbbing in his knuckles, the searing pain on his back and the overwhelming influx of uncontrollable thoughts and emotions as he feared the severity of his rage, having punched and knocked down the school’s star quarterback, a feat no one else would have dared to dream of doing. In typical Simon fashion, he begins to start assuming the worst, and that he was turning into his worst nightmare, his father. Collapsing his head on the table he sat at in the library, the exhaustion he was feeling catching up to the boy, he refrains from wincing when he moves in the wrong way and instead he removes his glasses, trying to soothe the migraine he could feel coming on. When the young man looks at his reflection in his crappy cell phone screen, he winces at the near mirror image of him and his father, drawn to the same shade of dark brown eyes he was doomed with forever.

_But you can't stop DNA_   
_No, you can't stop DNA_

It was a cold winter’s morning, nearing freezing, and while the gangly, long haired boy was only wearing a pair of worn out jeans and a thin hoodie over a thin black t-shirt, a perfect length for him just too baggy for him, never once did Simon shiver when he entered the Jewish cemetery his mother had been laid to rest in. Finding her plot, only identifiable by a wooden cross which Simon had made in shop class when he’d joined high school, he stands in front of her grave, mentally praying to her in Hebrew. Immersed in his mind, he doesn’t notice the kindly police officer from all those years ago walk up behind him, nor does he notice him placing the bouquet of flowers on her grave. It’s only when Luke gently places a hand on Simon’s shoulder does the damaged boy even notice his presence, flinching away from him automatically.  
  
“I didn’t mean to scare you kid, I just was wondering how you’re holding up.” Luke says kindly, an unusual occurrence for the young boy.

Simon, like normal, diverts his attention from the man’s face, trying to hold back the influx of emotions he felt after experiencing the first bit of kindness in too long. Briefly, he looks up and Luke notices the array of black and blue bruises on the young man’s face, blatantly disgusting the over-protective man for the safety of him. The young man flinches at the look of disgust, assuming it was from seeing his “ugly mug” as his father called it, only to be reassured that it wasn’t because of him per say but the state his father had left him in. 

“Look, I can’t keep ignoring this any longer kid; you need to report him and what he’s done because I’d rather not have to respond to a 911 call because he’s beaten you half to death. I can keep you safe, if you write a statement and let us document the wounds, you’d never have to see him again.”

Surprisingly, for both Simon and Luke, Simon motions for Luke to take him to the police station, and he does just what Luke suggested him to do, the only thing he’d ever done for himself in the nearly sixteen years of his life.

_Twice a year, you come in crashing_   
_Nice to see you too_

After a long and arduous journey, many court cases, doctor’s visits and failed psychiatrist trips, Rebecca visits her brother one day, out of the blue, having not seen him in over eleven years. Having had no contact with Luke or Simon beforehand, it is only when Luke opens his front door, half expecting it to be his “not-girlfriend” Jocelyn, only to recognise the girl vaguely from her ID on Simon’s records from the court case. Quietly, Luke shuts his front door before scowling at her, grilling her almost immediately, irritated that it took her that long to turn up, not even thinking about trying to gain custody of her brother in a household she blatantly knew was abusive and damaging.  
  
“Look, all I want to do is see my little brother and make sure he’s okay, I miss him.”  
  
“That’s funny,” Luke states, his tone unusually malicious and venomous, “because after the state officials tried to get into contact with you before Simon’s custody case to see if you’d accept custody of him as you’re the only living relative of him, you were nowhere to be found. I understand that your father was verbally abusive towards you, but he became physically abusive to your brother once you up and left, not even thinking about his wellbeing.”  
  
“I know I screwed up.” She says annoyed, Luke muttering something along the lines of “Yeah no kidding.” Rebecca glares at him.  
  
“I think you should leave Rebecca, I don’t know what your presence could do to Simon, therefore as his caregiver and legally, his father, and it’s in his best interests for you to not contact him unless he initiates it.”  
  
However it was too late, as Simon walks out of the house to take out the trash when he sees his sister retreating from the house he is immersed in flashbacks, stood stoic, dropping the trash bag, only focusing on the few memories he could remember sharing with her.

_Johnny Cash and backseat laughing_   
_Always ends too soon_

**Simon was only four when his sister decided to take him away from their parent’s incessant arguing, taking him on a ride in a battered pickup truck she took pride in regardless of its state. She grabs a CD from the glove box, not paying much attention to what it was, only opening it and sliding it into the slot on the truck and playing it loudly. They start singing along to the American II album, not caring that people could most likely hear them, only caring about having that peace, that calm, that freedom from their parents, even if it was only for a couple of hours. Rebecca made jokes, tried to make him feel better, making him laugh, an innocent and pure sound she couldn’t deny she loved. But then they had to go home, go back to the noise and the anger, and it ended too soon for both siblings.**

_Hate to say hello 'cause I know that it means goodbye_   
_Hate to ask but what's it like to leave me behind_

While Simon is emerged in the crippling anxiety attack, rendering his entire body useless, Rebecca ran to her sleek and expensive branded car no one cared to notice. She didn’t hesitate in starting the engine and driving off to wherever she was staying, leaving her brother alone once again, as she escaped from any responsibilities in regards to her brother. Luke barely manages to coax the gangly boy inside without touching him, trying to reassure the understandably paranoid boy that his father couldn’t possibly hurt him again.  
  
The overwhelming influx of emotions knocks Simon out after his long-endured anxiety attack and Luke sighs when he sees the fragile looking boy curled up in the foetal position, trembling from exhaustion and fear. Not sure of what to do, Luke phones Jocelyn and demands her and Clary come over to his house as soon as possible, wondering how to cope. Within minutes, Jocelyn turns up, Clary and five of her friends in tow, Clary and her friends being dismissed to the games room Luke has upstairs while Jocelyn ensures no serious bodily harm hasn’t happened to the young boy.

_I won't be, no I won't be like you_   
_Fighting back, I'm fighting back the truth_   
_Eyes like yours can't look away_

When Simon awoke, he was being loomed over by Jocelyn, Luke and the red haired girl, who Simon assumed was Luke’s soon to be step-daughter. Pushing himself up from the position he’d been in for god knows how long, he shakes his stiff and aching limbs out before walking out of the people-filled room, ignoring the various attempts of everyone trying to talk to him, see if he was alright, even though Simon never spoke and Luke (and presumably Jocelyn) knew that well. It’s when someone grabs his much too bony shoulder that the boy reacts, turning around and punching them in the face unintentionally. Looking up, he sees Andrew (or quite possibly Alex) stood there, cradling his now throbbing, bleeding nose, and one look at the blood scars him, knowing he’d inflicted an injury on someone for no reason, just like his father. While Luke attempts to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, Simon shakes in shock and bolts upstairs faster than anyone else could even react to the situation. Alec tries to go after Simon, however his boyfriend Magnus holds him back, reassuring him that although Alec has already forgiven him for what he accidentally did, it doesn’t mean Simon could forgive himself.

_But you can't stop DNA_   
_No, you can't stop DNA_

Pacing around his room, much too big for his liking, Simon begins tugging at his hair, mentally muttering to himself in Hebrew about his stupidity and the animosity of his actions. When he turns, he sees his reflexion in the mirror and all that he can see is his father’s eyes and his mother’s facial structure, a perfect combination of the two. Not wanting to see the piercing eyes any longer, he punches the mirror, letting it shatter into hundreds of tiny pieces, feeling no pain whatsoever, simply feeling numb. Almost instantaneously, he hears a frantic knocking on his bedroom door, someone whose voice he couldn’t recognise asking him to open up so he could treat him. Rubbing his hand over his exhausted face, he walks over the glass with his bare feet, opening the door to see a taller flamboyant looking Asian decent boy he’d seen around school, one who didn’t bully him per say, but didn’t do anything to stop it.   
  
The look on his face describes his sympathy for Simon, an understanding look on his face, but Simon ignores the sympathy, much rather preferring the neutral look he wore and received off of most people. Motioning for the slightly older teenager to enter his room, he lets the Indonesian (he’s assuming) boy put his supplies on his bed and carefully, after asking for his permission to touch his hand to cleanse and bandage his wound. Simon sits there stoically, not flinching in fear of someone, anyone touching him and attacking him for doing so. Once his hand has been properly bandaged up, Magnus takes the hint and leaves him be, not wanting to force him into doing or saying anything. It’s then when he decides enough is enough.

_Are the pieces of you_   
_In the pieces of me?_

His fear for what he could do to others overweighs the fear of what he would do to himself, so once he knows he is safe in his room alone, he makes his way to his bathroom, connected to his bedroom for extra privacy. He shuts his bathroom door, forgetting to lock it completely, and goes through the cupboard above his sink, ignoring the other mirror directly in front of him as he sings the door open, finding a packet of unused razors, as well as his anti-anxiety meds he is supposed to take daily to prevent his anxiety attacks and some anti-depressants he’d also been prescribed. Lying in his bathtub, he swallows copious amounts of pills, taking little regard of what he was doing and sliced his wrists vertically and horizontally before laying there, ready to succumb to the darkness. He vaguely remembers a tall person rushing in, shouting at him to wake up and for someone to call an ambulance, but at that point he was too far gone to care.

_I'm just so scared_   
_You're who I'll be_

It takes over three weeks for Simon to wake up, after his suicide attempt, and when he does awaken and open his eyes, he is blinded by a harsh white environment, lights causing him to wince and attempt to move to hide under the plastic pillow his greasy hair had been on for too long. The first person to notice that Simon was indeed alive and awake, wasn’t Luke, Jocelyn or even Clary, instead it was Alec, who, in the bluntest way possible, looked like a wreck. The first thing the unnaturally gaunt looking man did was begin praying in Spanish – thanking God among many other things Simon understood but didn’t care to inform anyone of. When Alec begins to ramble, similar to what Simon had been like all those years ago, Simon barely manages to clasp Alec’s hand and squeeze it and the look he gives him ensures Alec that he isn’t the reason for Simon’s actions.   
Alec, once realising the reality of what happened, rushes out of Simon’s room, dimming the lights, knowing it would be harsh for his unadjusted eyes, and he hastily calls Luke, telling him of the news. After being reassured that everyone is on their way, Alec returns back to Simon’s hospital room to see the boy writing something, hiding the notebook behind his pillow when he sees Alec walk through the door. Sat in silence, Simon sits there, thinking about multiple things while waiting for the others to turn up, so he could get a better idea of when he’s going to be able to put his plan into action.

_When I erupt_   
_Just like you do_   
_They look at me_   
_Like I look at you_

It takes over two weeks before the hospital feel comfortable releasing Simon back into Luke’s custody and even then he’s has hundreds of terms and conditions he has to follow. Luke decides not to go overboard on the watching over him; however he has to go through hourly checkups, ensuring he is still alive. After going through the same, dull routine for over two weeks, he realised a major flaw to their plan: every other day, when they go to change over the watch dogs for two until five, no one turned up until half past two, Jace having “better things to do with his life” meaning Simon had half an hour to make a clean getaway. He packed the few necessities he’d need, the money he’d had saved for years, his thickest winter clothes, some personal items, and shoes he knew wouldn’t possibly break in a hurry. Then he left the letters he’d prepared for everyone over the course of the hellish four weeks he’d been through, and when he saw Luke’s car pull out of the driveway for good, he climbed out of his bedroom window running through the back garden and making his way to the nearest coach station, booking the first coach he could find out of New York, scared of what he could do to people, hiding from everyone, saving them from what he could well become.

_I won't be, no I won't be like you_   
_Fighting back, I'm fighting back the truth_   
_Eyes like yours can't look away_

When he arrived in a small town, far from the Brooklyn he’d grown up in, he books himself a hotel room, paying in cash and giving a false name to not draw any attention to himself. When he turned on the low quality TV, he sees a news bulletin with his face on, asking for him to return home safely, and doesn’t do anything to harm himself, but taking one look in the mirror in that shitty hotel bathroom, he writes a final farewell to whoever that finds him then gets the supplies he’d packed before and utters some of the few words he’d said in his lifetime in one of his native tongues before finally feeling at peace.  
  
“אתה לא יכול לעצור את זה אני מצטער לוק.”  
  
Dead.

_But you can't stop DNA_   
_No, you can't stop DNA_

**Author's Note:**

> Translation (according to google translate so to any Hebrew speakers I'm truly sorry): "You can't stop it, I'm sorry Luke."
> 
> Please do leave a comment - criticism or compliments I'm not fussed - and I hope that like me, your heart broke a little when you read this.


End file.
